Jeff - January 9, 2011
The last day of the conference began with saying goodbyes. A lot of people leave during the last day, including my roommate Kashyap. Towards the end of the day, there were only a few people attending talks. The last talk was at 5:40. I stayed until the end of a session whose second to last talk was given by someone I know from UIUC. There was a small reunion of Western Number Theory Conference participants, which was held a few weeks before. We said our goodbyes and that we'd probably see each other again at a future conference.
I returned to the hotel to go to the banquet, chatting with some retired professors and students, seemingly the only attendants of the banquet. The weather wasn't great. It was pouring rain and was very windy. I thought it wasn't that bad at first, being from Oklahoma and all, but there were some gusts that can remind you that the wind doesn't let anything stand in its way.
Overall, the joint meetings were a lot of fun and it was great to see a lot of people I met at other conferences. I also got to see a talk given by Joe Silverman. You can meet a lot of really famous mathematicians at the joint meetings and can see a wide variety of mathematics. That's whats great about these large meetings. However, I still feel that the best conferences to go to are the smaller ones.
This year's joint meetings had approximately 6000 participants by the end of it all. The AMS will soon offer funding for graduate and undergraduate students to go to the sectional meetings and I urge you to take advantage of this. It's important to get involved in the mathematical community and I think you can best participate by going to smaller conferences and workshops. Where can you find information on these? Well, the OU MGSA have links to several sites listing upcoming conferences, such as numbertheory.org.
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Sarah - Day 4 - Saturday, January 8
This morning, I started by going to a couple of faculty development talks before heading over to the retiring MAA president's address on the transition from high school to college mathematics. After this, I went to some history of math talks in the same building. My point in sharing these things is that I think sometimes it's important at large conferences to broaden our horizons and explore areas of the mathematical community that we don't have access to at our individual schools. It can be really beneficial, especially to those of us that are on or near the job market, to be well-versed in many areas of our chosen field.
After lunch, I attended talks on helping underprepared students transition into college mathematics and on humanistic mathematics. Then, I found a very interesting session in the conference program: Three MAA teaching award winners were giving invited talks. There didn't appear to be a particular theme to the talks, but they all had interesting titles, so I settled in for the hour-and-a-half session. These talks didn't disappoint. They were full of interesting reflections on our role as teachers, as ambassadors for mathematics, and as (current or future) faculty members. I got the impression that all three of the speakers were pure mathematicians, not math education researchers, and their talks were full of humor and insight. I've never noticed this session before, but I'd recommend it to those attending the Joint Meetings in the future.
A few last-minute reflections on conferences more generally:
1. Go with at least one or two people you know, but be prepared to reach out and meet other people in your area of interest. On the one hand, you don't want to be forced to eat meals alone the first couple of days of the conference, and you'll have more confidence to approach new acquaintances if you have a friend with you. On the other hand, it's important to use conferences to network, share ideas, and develop professional relationships across geographical constraints.
2. Be bold! Don't be afraid to start conversations with people in your field! I can't think of anyone who would be upset that you wanted to discuss their talk (or recent paper, or prior conference presentation, or whatever) with them during the conference. Plus, having been to someone's talk or knowing their published work is a great way to break the ice when you introduce yourself to them. If you have a friend, advisor, or mentor with more experience in your area, see if they can introduce you to these bigwigs.
3. Have fun. Yes, it's important to attend talks in your area to see the latest research, but it's also important to find a session or two that you just find independently interesting. It's beneficial to us as humans to recharge our social and intellectual batteries every now and again.
4. Plan ahead. Conferences are much more affordable if you have travel support, a roommate, and firm plans upon arrival. For some conferences, you must apply to give talks many months in advance of the actual conference. Start now to find dates of conferences in your area and begin making plans to attend! You can visit the graduate student webpage for more information on conference funding options.
Good luck!
Good posts.
ReplyDeleteI noticed that there were a lot of OU people at the JMM, including former students, postdoctoral associates and faculty. Perhaps we should arrange an OU reunion reception some year.